If you read this blog, you probably believe that most anything is possible. If that’s your belief system, how often do you act as if it’s true? How often do you act on the basis that most anything is possible? Have you ever considered how your life and work might change if you more frequently accepted the possibility of creation without limitation? For those of us who are self-employed a change in perspective is often an essential adjustment.
Earlier in The Missing Key to Success I introduced a former client Joe, who very much needed to expand his perspective of what was possible. Joe was amazed at what he saw by simply keeping the agreement to change his perspective.
Too often we see what we expect to see and what we expect to see is limited by our beliefs of what we think is likely to occur. Thus we often remain within a cycle of manifestation that’s limited by our past.
As a self-employed entrepreneur Joe was concerned about sustaining his momentum.
What Joe didn’t understand before coaching is the incredible power of accountability. Accountability is a built-in benefit of coaching that increases the probability of the client trying out new and different perspectives and actions. Encouraged by the coach’s confidence and enthusiasm, the client will often make and honor agreements that he would not complete on his own. It’s this professional leverage that makes all the difference.
The use of agreements helps to encourage the client to see and do things differently. Life is really not as difficult as we tend to make it. My coaching experience proves that if you believe in and use some very simple concepts, they can make all the difference.
“Any movement works” is one such concept. You need to understand it to believe in it -and you need to believe in it to apply it intentionally. Yet the quickest route to understanding is to actually practice it. That’s where agreements come in.
Getting back to Joe. By seeing things differently and following through with actions, he was able to come to some startling, new found realizations. His most powerful were:
1). My opportunities expand in direct proportion to my expanding awareness and my willingness to look for the good in all situations.
2). Often I would do things because they had worked for others without taking into account how aligned these actions were with who I am.
3). Because some of these traditionally successful actions didn’t fit me, I resisted taking them and that resistance lead to greater self-doubt.
Joe would waste more energy trying to fit a mold that was laid out by others and when it didn’t work he would wonder what was wrong with him. But he wasn’t lacking anything, he just need to take a more authentic approach to building his business.
These realizations came for Joe over a month’s time and we kept adjusting his action and perspective agreements to follow his realizations. As a result, Joe is happier, more prosperous and works fewer hours than he previously did. What’s different? Joe now runs every major work decision past his deepest desires and values. If the new opportunity isn’t a fit he chooses something else. Making right-aligned decisions is the first step in authentic business building.
Joe needed to continue to complete agreements so he could continue to produce different results and come to fresh realizations.
Previously, Joe often sabotaged his progress because he exercised little personal authority. He wasn’t fully conscious of this, but his actions proved that he placed a higher value on methods created by others than on his own understanding. Joe simply needed to get in the habit of asking what new realizations he’d come to, as a result of his different actions. Realizations cement our understanding of new concepts and methods. Observing and noting personal realizations is the second step in authentic business building.
Joe’s newfound authority means he’s actually authoring his own life more often. Now he is following up his realizations with actions that fit. Many times I’ve asked him this simple question that has made a huge difference. What’s one small action step you could complete this week to exploit this realization? The third step in authentic business building is to use methods that combine our personal realizations with the utilization of our inherent strengths and peculiarities.
Authentic business building is a powerful cycle of perspective, realizations and actions that are filtered through a viewpoint of genuine fit. When you are more eager and enthusiastic to take an action, then that action is a better fit for the core you. Action that is a better fit for the core you, increases your probability of success.
Joe wisely continued to make and honor custom agreements that proved that he could rely on his own authenticity. If you’d like to experiment with this authentic business building process, here are some questions to get it moving.
· What agreements can I make that will cause me to see my situation from an expanded perspective?
· What actions can I take that will support that perspective?
· Then after the actions ask: What realizations can I now see that represent new understandings for me?
· Keeping in mind my inherent strengths and values, what action steps could I take that would leverage these new realizations?
As your coach from afar I’m asking you to actually answer that first question and take that action. When we expect to see more opportunities they wondrously appear. Why not give it a shot and amaze yoursel
I’m stuck on the first question. Can I buy a vowel?
Laurie Okay here’s your vowel. If nothing comes up for you by asking the first question then you need the same agreement that Joe originally made. It’s simply a change in perspective agreement that assumes there is something really beneficial in all situations and you’ll keep asking until you find it. The question to use is: What’s good about this?
You just need to connect to your inner wisdom to see a whole array of expanded possibilities that you don’t now see. Another approach is to think of someone you admire, alive or dead, and ask how would they approach this situation? I often find myself pondering, what would Walt Disney do if he were faced with this?
Give these two a shot and let me know how they work for you.
With my new business I have accepted the following premises:
· While I am starting out with the canyon, I will in time develop other inflatable programs.
· I will start locally and then move out from there
· The only schools that will not want to hire me will be the ones who don’t know about me or don’t have the money
· It’s a matter of time before I figure out how to network in all the places I can
· It will be more successful than I ever imagined
· It’s not about the money, it’s about the passion (but I have to eat)
Funny thing. The state PTA conference was this past weekend. I didn’t even know about it and an opportunity to go and market just fell into my lap. Even though I didn’t have my canyon with me, I was still able to get a lot of attention and interest. I think we’ll get a good many jobs form this. I am so excited.
We’re getting our canyon this weekend (supposedly) . We first ordered it in April and have had several delays. It has been difficult to keep positive with all the delays but I did it and am ready to go. Our first presentation is on Aug 7th. We are doing a local science camp. While the delays were frustrating, I think we’ll have a better canyon. So there is the positive spin on it. I really do think it will be better.
So how does this fit into the posed questions? Let me know what to do next!
I totally agree. A good coach would have studied all the pitfalls of limited thinking and have investigated his own. As a third party, he is also better able to observe the limitations that a client places on himself.
I like the fact that you also advocate making decisons that are in alignment to core values and authentic Self. Most people are geared up to pursuing what they want and do not question enough if these wants are in alignment. The result is lots of struggle, giving up halfway and feeling stuck!
Evelyn Lims last blog post..Confess Your Secrets
Laurie what should you do next? That all depends on what you’d like to accomplish next. Look for areas where your beliefs could be expanded. For example, you may think you have to wait on your inflatable to take some next steps. But you really don’t have to, do you?
Evelyn you are certainly correct. It’s so much easier to see the opportunities in a client’s life than it is to see them in our own, coach or not. That’s why so many good coaches have coaches. Coaching is simply and accelerator. It gets you there sooner without the needless struggle.
You’re right! I am spending the day working on the curriculum that will be on the website for those who book us. I aslo went to a conference last weekend to market it. This is so much fun. I love this job!
From the movie, “Man On Wire”:
“Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Let’s Get to work.”
Tom – have you seen this docu-movie yet?
Great heavens above, what a stunning accomplishment and, as other web reviewers have noted, a love letter to the Twin Towers.
It’s possible – but I learn these 4 ingredients from Philippe Petit’s over 6 years of preparation:
Discipline
Passion
Practice
Belief
regards
mark mcclure
I can relate to Joe’s dilemma here because I always seem to tussle with whether to follow the mob in pursuing a goal or stick with the strategy my gut suggests.
The strange thing is generally I trust my instincts, but when I really want something (eg. to be a novelist) I look at the path the industry says I should follow (magazine publishing and short story competitions) and though this fills me with no interest or joy I think I should do it. Then when I can’t make myself do it and I instead work on my novel and hone my writing and short fiction on my blog, I feel like I’m never going to make it because I’m doing it wrong.
It depresses me that I find it so difficult to hold onto my own convictions here. But I do like your question about the person you admire and what they’d do. I am a huge fan of Johnny Depp as an individual and an actor, and when I ask what would Johnny do in my situation, the answer definitely would be “F*ck the mob. I do what I want.”
So that should be my answer.
Kelly
Kelly damn right go with your gut and Johnny’s advice. Just stick with that in your writing for a month while making an agreement with yourself that you will not self-judge. In fact praise yourself for doing it your way and I’ll bet you’ll see a world of difference.
Hi Tom – I waited ages for this post and I wasn’t disappointed. The silly thing is, I could have read this in Mexico. But I was scanning through your recent posts on your site looking for something like Joe 2 in the title.
Like Joe – I’ve screwed up badly doing it the way other people tell me in the past. I was just explaining to Monika how I wasted so much time plucking up the courage to cold call, because I was told it was the best way to get business. But it isn’t if you hate doing it so much that you spend most of the day worrying about doing it.
But still, it’s sometimes difficult to have the courage to follow your own path. I’m going to try it your way and see how I get on. Thank you.
Cath that cold call thing has been a challenge for so many including myself and I was in sales for 23 years. I think we really hate it because we know that it’s an interruption to those we are calling.
The thing that works best for me is to think about the benefit to the other person that they may not be aware of. Calling while focusing totally io on their highest goo can work.
Courage comes easier with practice. let me know how it goes for you.